August 08 Senate Submission: Academic Freedom ACADEMIC FREEDOM MAKE EDUCATION FAIR 13th August 2008 Committee Secretary Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee Department of the Senate SUBMISSION TO SENATE INQUIRY INTO ACADEMIC FREEDOM The Young Liberal movement and the Australian Liberal Students Federation are gravely concerned about fairness in education. We welcome the opportunity to provide a submission into the inquiry into Academic Freedom, representing the voice of mainstream students across the country. Make Education Fair Campaign Bias at our high schools and university campuses has reached epidemic proportions. Many of our student members have approached us with numerous stories of this bias being expressed by teachers, reflected in the curriculum or in a hostile atmosphere for students who cannot freely express their views. We would like to ensure that all students continue to have the right to exercise freedom of thought and expression, without fear of reprisal or penalty. Over the past few months, the Make Education Fair campaign has actively sourced examples from students who have experienced bias on university campuses. The depth of academic bias uncovered by this campaign, most notably in the arts faculties of Australia’s major universities, is gravely disturbing and poses significant challenges for diversity within the education sector. The examples that have been provided to us indicate the following problems with academic freedom within Australia: • A lack of diversity amongst academics and the willingness of educators to use the classroom to promote their views • A chilling effect on free speech on university campuses, with only certain points of view deemed acceptable for expression • The insertion of extreme left viewpoints into both high school and university curricula with the intent to indoctrinate students to these views, accompanied by the silencing of dissenting views • A focus on ‘social justice’ topics by teachers rather than on hard disciplines, resulting in an alarming drop in both literacy and numeracy Australian students value our traditions of intellectual diversity and academic freedom and want to see them continue. Universities and other places of higher learning are supposed to be places where different ideas and viewpoints can be freely exchanged. Unfortunately, the Make Education Fair campaign has uncovered numerous examples, which demonstrate unequivocally that some educators use their classrooms to express and impose their political views on students. ACADEMIC FREEDOM We enclose a selection of those examples, in the following categories: 1. Profiles of various academics 2. Photos of the campus environment and union funded publications 3. Extracts from Course Guides & Related Materials 4. Course Descriptions exhibiting bias Nigel Freitas Campaign Director Make Education Fair ACADEMIC FREEDOM Part 1 ‐ Academic Profiles As well as being educators, many of Australia’s leading academics are also activists for far left social causes. According to Associate Professor Gregory Melluish: “A recent article in The Economist (reprinted in The Australian on December 15) bemoaned the lack of political diversity in American universities. It contended," “Academe is simultaneously both the part of the US that is most obsessed with diversity and the least diverse part of the country". It pointed to a survey of more than 1,000 academics that showed that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by something like seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. If the situation looks lopsided in the US, a country that has a large and relatively diverse university system, then it is nothing short of desperate in Australia with its small and homogenous set of public universities. The lack of intellectual and political diversity in the humanities and social sciences in Australia is perhaps their most significant defining feature.” To highlight the extent of the lack of diversity within academia, we have listed just a few of this country’s prominent academics and their involvement in radical left causes. Wendy Bacon During the 1960s, Wendy Bacon was a member of a Sydney anarchist group known as the Push. The Push opposed what they saw as conservative forms of authority, rejected traditional morality and embraced drinking, gambling, sex and anarchy. "One of the good things about The Push is that there was a very strong belief in open inquiry and discussion, but I guess the core of The Push was certainly more radical. One of the things I think that attracted me to it, for whatever deep psychological reasons I have got a fairly strong anti-authoritarian streak. But I was also very drawn to radical social movements. One of the things about The Push was that The Push philosophies took on board if you like, the tragedies of communism over the twentieth century... declared it a failure, but believed nevertheless in resistance and permanent protest." Bacon, while editor of Tharunka, was arrested for breaking the censorship laws, publishing obscene and hateful anti-Christian slogans. According to author James Franklin, Bacon is a relativist who believed that "moral views are connected to social movements...no one set of views is inherently preferable to another. Seen in this light, depravity and corruptions cease to have any meaning.’ Wendy Bacon is the Program Director for Journalism at UTS. Eva Cox Eva Cox is a feminist activist and the chair of the Women's Electoral Lobby, which actively campaigned against Work Choices at the last federal election. Her most recent foray into public life was when she criticised the 20/20 summit in a racist tirade as 'white anglo blokes'. In the 1950s, Cox was a member of the radical anarchist ACADEMIC FREEDOM group The Push, along with fellow UTS academic Wendy Bacon. In the 1970s she joined the Labor party as an anti-war and feminist advocate, Cox is open about her radical activist agenda, stating that "I’ve always seen myself as a radical reformist. I’ve tried to help create a society in which people are not excluded and not diminished by being members of particular groups and I’ve used many different ways to try and get that message across. " After the last election, Cox also expressed the opinion that after the Howard era Australia was a "damaged society" Eva Cox was a lecturer in Social Sciences at UTS Peter Singer Peter Singer has been at the forefront of the animal rights movement and has stated that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occurbetween humans and animals. Singer also believes that it is morally acceptable to kill disabled children - "I do think that it is sometimes appropriate to kill a human infant. For me, the relevant question is, what makes it so seriously wrong to take a life? Those of you who are not vegetarians are responsible for taking a life every time you eat. Species is no more relevant than race in making these judgments." Singer is hostile to the idea that human life is worth anymore than animal life, which he calls 'specieism' Singer has stated that "the notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” He has also justified involuntary euthanasia by writing "In some cases it would be right to kill a person who does not choose to die." Peter Singer is a laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. Catharine Lumby Catharine Lumby was hired as a 'gender expert’ by the National Rugby League after a series of gang rapes rocked the code. Her first pronouncement was to criticise what she saw as ’moral panic’ and claim that there was no problem with group sex as long as the woman was treated with respect. Says Catharine - "The idea that group sex is aberrant is a very particular view." Lumby, a radical feminist, has also defended pornography is a potentially liberating tool for women and claimed Big Brother Uncut helps young people to show 'care and respect for other people in sexual encounters'. Catharine Lumby is Director of the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of NSW, having previously been the Director of the Media and Communications Program at Sydney University. The Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University The Macquarie Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy features a number of fashionably politically correct schools, including the Institute of Women's Studies, the Warawara Deparment of Indigenous Studies, a Centre for Research on Social Inclusion and the Department of Critical and Cultural studies. These academics who make up this department specialise in an incredibly diverse range of areas, including * Dr N. Anderson - Feminist & Gender theory, Postmodernism * Dr A. Francis-Cranny - Feminist & Gender studies, Culture studies ACADEMIC FREEDOM * Dr A. Lambert - Gender & Sexuality, Anti-colonialism * Dr Samantha Murray - Gender Studies, Queer Theory, Feminism * Dr Nikki Sullivan - Queer Theory, Postmodernism Peter Manning Peter Manning spent 8 years at the ABC, working in Radio, News & Current affairs and Four Corners. In 2006, he authored a book claiming that media coverage of Muslims was tainted by racism and in 2007 wrote columns excusing Sheikh Al-Hilali's comments about women as 'uncovered meat'. A critic of John Howard, Manning wrote that the Cronulla riots demonstrated the "true face of Australian fascism” and that "Howard spent a decade playing the race card...mainly against Arab and Muslim Australians”. Manning teaches Journalism at UTS. Sarah Maddison According to her profile, who lectures in the School of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of New South Wales. has researched 'focused audits on gender and sexuality' and is a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. She is co-author of the Gender Audit for the Democratic Audit of Australia (2007 and her other research interests include Indigenous Politics, Social Change and Gender. Recently, Maddison became concerned that Howard government was using ‘bullying, intimidation and public denigration to silence its critics one by one’.